Rameeza Nizami elected APNS Joint Secretary

LAHORE – The annual meeting of the APNS General Council held Thursday elected the Executive Committee for the year 2011-12 which unanimously elected Hameed Haroon as President, Mehtab Khan as Senior Vice President, Sarmad Ali as Secretary General, Umer Mujib Shami as Vice President, Rameeza Majid Nizami as Joint Secretary and S.M. Munir Jilani as Finance Secretary of the Society.

The annual meeting held under the Chairmanship of Hameed Haroon, President for the year 2010-11, unanimously approved the report of the Executive Committee for the preceding year as well as the annual accounts of the Society.

The Council elected Younus Riaz of Daily Beopar Karachi as member emeritus in recognition of his services for the newspaper industry.

The General Council, attended by 138 members from across the country, formed an Election Commission headed by Younus Riaz, Usman Arab Saati and Ms. Rukhsana Seham Mirza as members.

At this stage, 19 member publications left the meeting and did not participate in the election process.
The Election Commission conducted the election of the Executive Committee for the year 2011-12.

The APNS Council considered the Govt-Press relations, the state of newspaper industry as well as the problems faced by member publications. The General Council in a special resolution noted with concern that the Federal as well as provincial governments are denying government advertising to majority of genuine publications and stressed that the government advertisement data should be released on website of the PID and provincial information departments to ensure transparency in the release of government advertisements.

The members also urged upon the Federal Government to make it compulsory for a publication to be included in the Central Media List.

The General Council urged upon the Federal and provincial governments to stand by their commitments for freedom of Press and refrain from victimizing the newspapers that do not follow the officials dictates.

The members based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan have also reported to the Council that the Information Departments of the provinces have adopted discriminatory approach while releasing government advertisements which are being distributed to irregular publications while the senior and genuine publications were being completely ignored.This has resulted in the acute financial crunch to the newspaper industry in the province.

Daily Azadi, Swat briefed the members that the Federal and provincial governments have not so far honoured their commitments to compensate the publication for the loss incurred due to terrorist attacks and military action resulting in damages to their office premises.